Rusted Triangle
by Neverend
Summary: Hermione chose Ron over Krum. It is now ten years later and Krum shows up with a message. Told mostly in flashbacks.
1. The Castle Roof

Author's Note: The style of the story is different than what I usually write, and it's one of my first real romances ever, so I'm not sure whether it's good or not.   
  
Hermione was still young. Her skin was smooth. Her hair, as bushy and as brown as it had ever been, had not even single fleck of grey. She was still young.  
  
Sometimes she forgot this.  
  
How old was she, anyway? In her mind Hermione counted up the years. Twenty-five... twenty-six... twenty-seven. Only twenty-seven? She could have sworn she was over thirty. She counted again and got the same answer. She was definitely twenty-seven.  
  
It was understandable that Hermione felt old. After all, every important event in her life had happened when she was seventeen.  
  
That was the year she had fallen in love.  
  
Or rather, as she now realized, she had been falling for years before that, but it was at seventeen that she hit the bottom. The flaming, rocky bottom. She hadn't even seen it coming.  
  
It was in the fall of her seventh year at school that she kissed him for the first time.  
  
She had been doing homework, but was tired of it. She was tired of pretending that schoolwork mattered one fraction of a shred when the world was breaking apart. Her, Hermione the bookworm, tired of studying!  
  
Students weren't allowed on the castle roofs, but she didn't care about rules as much as she used to either. She wanted to go somewhere where no one would follow her.  
  
He followed her anyway.  
  
First she had heard scrabbling and puffing, and then his fiery orange hair had emerged over the parapet. "Help me up, why don't you," he asked. Hermione considered letting him dangle there, but at last stretched out a hand to pull him up. It wasn't exactly an easy climb, and he had made it to talk to her. That had to mean something.  
  
"So," said Ron, once he was standing beside her, "what could possibly make my Hermione leave her Charms essay half finished?"  
  
"Charms don't matter anymore," she said, not looking at him. "The only speels that matter now are curses."  
  
"They're teaching us those too."  
  
He was right. After the day's lessons were over, every seventh year, including the only three Slytherins that hadn't left, reported to the Great Hall and learned how to do battle.  
  
"I wanted to look at it all, I guess?"  
  
"What's 'it all'?"  
  
"Oh, you know. The castle. The mountains."   
  
"The village," he said, eyes aimed at a cluster of lights glittering like stars below them.  
  
Hermione nodded. "It looks so peaceful, as if none of it has changed since the day we first came here. If you were closer you'd see that nothing is the same, that everyone is scared and hiding in their houses..."  
  
"Or their common rooms," said Ron.  
  
The two children stood in silence for a long while, looking at the castle, and the mountains, and the village, and the sky. A cold wind blew up the wall, over the parapet, and across Hermione's shoulders.  
  
"You came out here without your cloak?" He had seen her shiver.  
  
She shrugged. The truth was that she had been so frustrated, she rushed out without thought of covering.  
  
Ron sighed and unclasped his own black cloak. Tenderly he placed it over her shoulders. It felt wonderful, his body heat having warmed the black wool. He paused for a moment with a hand on each of her shoulders, then pulled away very quickly.  
  
"Do you love him?" he asked suddenly, as soon as he'd let go of her.  
  
Hermione didn't need to ask who he meant. She had noticed how silent irritable Ron had been, ever since Victor had come to stay at the castle.  
  
"I don't know," she said at last. "He is a really good person. Sweet, and intelligent, even though he still can't pronounce my name."  
  
Ron chuckled. Haltingly she continued. "I feel like I should love him. He cares so much for me."  
  
"Krum's been in love with you for three years." He stopped and moved so that he was facing her. "But I've loved you for longer."  
  
Her eyes widened. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What?"  
  
"Your heard me." He placed one firm hand onto each of her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. "Hermione Granger, I have loved you more than life itself ever since that Halloween night with the troll."  
  
"The troll?" She laughed. "We were eleven years old!"  
  
"It's never too early to start loving somebody."  
  
"You certainly didn't act it."  
  
"For the longest time I couldn't admit it to myself. It was much too deep for a stupid kid like me to understand. I needed you to help with that. You've always been so much smarter than me, always understood everything before I did."  
  
The tears were flowing fast now. They burned her eyes and traced warm, wet paths down her cheeks. "Oh Ron!"  
  
He pulled her to him, and they kissed. She had never been kissed before, and was sure that he hadn't either, but there was no clumsiness in that kiss. It was deep, and it was long, and it was full of all the love a kiss could possibly hold. She felt as if she were swimming, swimming through the stars, and all the time safely encircled by his warm, strong, loving arms.  
  
She wished that kiss would never end, but at last they pulled away.  
  
"I love you Ron."  
  
"I love you Hermione."   
  
And she knew, standing there on the castle roof next to this tall, gangly, red-haired boy, that though a kiss couldn't last for eternity, their love would. 


	2. Gleamings

Authur's Note. This will be a short fic. Somehow, I think it has to be short. There will be a few more chapters after this, all about this length. Most of the major conflict will happen in the next chapter and the one after that, and might even be a bit too conflicty, I'm not sure. My style is usually simpler and cheerier, with loads and loads of detail and description. I just hope that you will not be sorry that you read this.  
  
  
  
Victor had seen the kiss.  
  
Hermione wasn't sure how. She guessed that he'd been flying. He liked to fly over the grounds and would spend long hours high above the Forbidden Forest, or low over the lake with his feet trailing in the dark water. He had taken her up with him once, sitting in front of him on the broom. They had wound through and around the turrets and towers of the castle, and she could clearly see people running to and from classes.  
  
Or, possibly, kissing on the roof.  
  
In a way, she was glad he had seen. It saved her the awkwardness of having to tell him her decision. There was a brief scene between them, in which Hermione told him that she did love him... just not as much. He asked Dumbledore whether he would be useful somewhere far away.   
  
And then Victor climbed on the broomstick and flew out of her life.  
  
  
  
It was hard to leave the memories. They were sticky, and clung to her, wanting her to stay locked forever in them. Especially that one, particular memory. With effort Hermione was able to escape the pull of the past into the present, or as much so as she ever did.  
  
She turned to the stack of Transfiguration essays she should be grading and reached for her quill. As she did so, the candlelight gleamed on the ring. Her eyes were drawn to it and held there, transfixed. It seemed to her that even as she watched the gleam changed from that of flame on silver to moonlight glittering on snow. Her mind filled with snow that drifted down past the window in slow swirls and eddies to lie peacefully on the grounds below.  
  
The castle was very full, that winter when she was seventeen. Half the wizarding world had fled behind its stone walls, taking their families with them. They slept on cots in classrooms and corridors, and spent their days huddling together, whispering, praying, and staring out of windows at the falling snow.  
  
Among these refugees were his entire family. They, however, did not whisper and cower. They laughed and talked and lit up the castle with their wide smiles and blazing hair. Even though they had been driven there by a dark and choking shadow, the Weasleys managed to celebrate. That was why she loved that family.  
  
They were all in the Gryffindor common room one night, they and Hermione and Harry, sitting around the fireplace and being cheerful. About halfway throught he night Ron was able to pull her away from the group into a dark corner by themselves.  
  
"Have you noticed the way your mother has been looking at you ever since she got here?" he asked her once they were alone.  
  
She smiled. "Half the time her eyes are all big and melty, as if I'm some sort of kitten or puppy or something, and half the time she glares at me."  
  
"Mothers are very perceptive like that. They can tell when their sons are in love."  
  
"Well its not as if we've been very secretive about it."  
  
Ron took her hands in his. "I konw, but Harry and my sister, and everyone else, just think its a stupid little thing that we'll forget soon. They don't realize..."  
  
Hermione stopped the rest of the sentence with a kiss.  
  
"Yeah," he said, "that. In fact, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."  
  
She looked up at him, "What is it, my love."  
  
"Well, uh, Hermione. Hermione... I... I..."  
  
"Come on," she coaxed, "out with it."  
  
Ron took a deep breath and continued resolutely on. "Hermione. Bushy-haired Hermione. Bookworm Hermione."  
  
"This had better be going somewhere."  
  
"Oh it is. Hermione, love of my life, will you marry me?"  
  
It took her only a second to realize what he had said before she leapt at him. "Yes, yes, of course!" She hugged him with all the strength in her arms. He spun her around, laughing. When they finally stopped he reached into his robes and brought out a small brown box.   
  
Inside, of course, was a ring. It was a very simple, broad silver band. It had no stone, only a rune engraved on its smooth service.  
  
"Irl," she said, taking it out of the box, "Forever."  
  
Ron picked the ring up from her palm and slipped it onto her finger. "It's a hand-me-down, like everything else I own. It used to belong to my grandmother. I asked Dad if I could have it right before they all came here."  
  
Hermione glanced over at the swarm of red heads, and saw the one that belonged to Ron's father looking over at their corner. Hastily he turned his attention away from them.   
  
"Why didn't he give it Percy or Bill, since they got married first?"  
  
"They didn't ask for it. Neither of them are very romantic, you know. Of course Percy had to buy Penelope a big, expensive diamond ring, to show her how sucessful he was..."  
  
"It's perfect, Ron. It's beautiful, and I love it. And I love you. Always I love you." They kissed, not a melting, fly away kiss like the one on the roof earlier that year, but the simple sweet kind shared between people who know they are going to be spending the rest of their lives together.  
  
"We'll have to wait," he said as they pulled away, "since we're still in school."  
  
"It will happen the day after we graduate," Hermione assured him.  
  
The two betrothed looked toward the loud group by the fire. It had grown to include, not only the Weasleys and Harry, but Seamus Finnigan, who was holding hands with Lavender, Dean Thomas with his Muggle parents, and several younger children. All of them, with the exception of Ron's parents, were completely unaware of the events in the corner.  
  
"Shall we go tell them?" she asked.   
  
He put his hand firmly in hers. "Yes, lets."  
  
And they strode forth together, to spread the glad tidings.  
  
  
  
The beginning of that winter had been truly wonderful. Despite the growing terror in the far away world outside of Hogwarts, they had lived in a blissful flury of love and happiness. But the end of that winter had seen an event that made even the joyous beginnings seem bittersweet, and had left everyone in the castle, even the Weasleys, in tears.  
  
That winter, Albus Dumbledore had died.   
  
Hermione had been with him when it happened. His half-moon spectacles were on the table beside his bed, and his silver hair and beard were spread out in a miraculously untanlged puddle over the bed. It gleamed, like moonlight on snow, or candlelight on silver.  
  
There were many other people standing around his bed, including Harry, and Proffesors McGonigall and Snape, but it was Hermione who's hand he grasped in his. That hand was so thin and fragile. The browned skin felt like crumpled parchment, and his fingers were to weak to close completely around her own.  
  
"Always remember," he said, his voice, once so bright and youthful, now so faint, made her tears run twice as fast, "that it was not he who calls himself the Dark Lord who killed me. It was simply a long life, in which I did many things that some might call important, or dangerous, or what have you. All those years with magic running through the blood are bound to wear someone down."  
  
He moved his eyes around the circle of greif torn faces. "Life was able to do what Tom never could. Life will always be stronger than darkness. Those like Tom and his followers won't admit it, of course, but it is true. Life will endure anything, even death. Remember that Minerva, and Severus, and Harry."  
  
He stopped talking as a powerful shudder ran through him, shaking his entire, long frame. It seemed to last forever. Finally he stilled and his twinkling blue eyes opened again. Slowly his head turned so that those eyes were staring straight into Hermione's. "You too, Miss Granger. You didn't think I'd forget you?"  
  
She clasped his hand even tighter in hers and leaned closer to the aged wizard's face.  
  
"Live, Hermione, my prized student. Live, Hermione. Always, remember to live."  
  
With that the light that seemed to twinkle eternally behind the blue eyes of the headmaster dimmed. Albus Dumbledore, was no longer there. She let go of his hand and it fell, limply over the side of the bed. Her teacher, her mentor, Dumbledore, was dead.  
  
Somehow though, even as she fell sobbing back into her chair, she knew that the twinkling, powerful spirit that was Dumbledore, could not be so weak as to end forever in front of her. The life of Albus Dumbledore, at least, would endure even death. 


	3. Falling Sky

Author's Note: I am sincerely sorry for this chapter, and it will probably make you hate me. I don't like it that much myself. I think the writing's not as good as it could be. Sorry.  
  
"It will happen the day after we graduate."  
  
Yes, Hermione had said those words. The day after graduation should have been the best day of her life. She should have carefully remembered each detail of the day, preserved it in her mind for years to come.   
  
Instead she remembered a day a week before graduation. She didn't even try to remember it, it wouldn't let her forget. She remembered waking up that morning from warm dreams of Ron. She remembered Professor McConigall entering the common room and looking at all the people gathered there, and saying, "It is time." She remembered watching the younger children and the few Muggles there being evacuated to the inner depths of the castle, and the rest of them marching away behind McConigall. Soon they were standing in a courtyard, ranged about the door into the entrance hall.   
  
They stood there, all of the seventh year students and the Weasleys and many other witches and wizards, knowing that there was about to be a battle on the school grounds. None of the teachers were there, of course. They were in the Great Hall, with Harry, just beginning to preform the spell. It was a very ancient, very powerful spell, prepared by Dumbledore before he died. That spell would kill Voldemort, provided that they kept him and his followers away from the Great Hall for long enough.  
  
Ron's hand reached out and grasped her own, strong and reassuring, but only for a moment before letting go. She turned and kissed him, even as she saw the wall being blasted away in flash of green fire.   
  
Hermione stood.  
  
They rushed forward, a dark mass of Death Eaters in fluttering black robes. Among them Hermione saw many that had been her classmates a few months before. Oh well, they were the enemy now. She felt the crowd around her beginning to move. She charged with them, icily determined, and began to lay about with stunning spells. She saw one robed figure fall beneath a beam of red light from her wand, and he was promptly trampled by his own comrades.   
  
There was a tremendous crashing noise, and two black-haired girls flew high into the air and landed in front of Hermione with a spray of stone chips. Pavarti and Padma Patil lay in a twisted heap on the stone, blood seeping down their painfully pretty faces. At least the sisters could die together, she thought.   
  
"Crucio!" Hermione didn't see who had cursed her before she collapsed, her legs buckling beneath the pure pain. There was fire in her blood, she knew it, she could feel it. Every part of her was filled with indescribably pain. It twisted her, made her limbs flail in a pathetic attempt to drive away the flaming agony. Then, suddenly, it stopped.  
  
She pulled herself up from the ground, the pain of the curse still echoing in every part of her. Looking around, she saw the witch who had felled her attacker. It was Ginny. Ginny wasn't supposed to be there. She should be hiding with the other sixth years.   
  
The red-headed girl was not looking at Hermione, however. She was staring at a spot beside the other witch's head with wide, horrified eyes, and screaming, "Ron! Look out behind..." But her voice trailed into silence.   
  
Hermione turned. Ron was falling. His face was terribly pale, his hair streaming, his eyes... his eyes were empty. And Hermione saw her love's flaming head hitting the stones.   
  
For a moment her thoughts were frozen, and time seemed to stand still and she stared at his body. Time began to move again, slowly, as she looked up and saw Draco Malfoy, his wand dropping to his side and a wild expression on his face, very different from his usual smugness.   
  
There was a hole opening inside her, she could feel it at the base of her soul, a great black hole that was reaching out to pull her in. Hermione lifted her own wand and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"  
  
She killed Draco Malfoy.  
  
Hermione stood, her breath quick and loud. Her white fingers were clasped around her wand, still outstretched before her. Suddenly, there was a shriek that rose above the screams and explosions thundering all around. Pansy was on her in a whirl of flying fists and blonde hair. Within her screams Hermione could make out a gasping, sobbing "Murderer!"  
  
She dropped her own wand, and turned on Pansy. Hermione was not shrieking, but her breath was growing louder. Long and rasping, it tore at her throat. As she clawed at the other girl, the hole inside her grew, and darkened. It sucked at her, pulled at her. She knew that if she stopped flailing at Pansy for even a moment it would draw her into oblivion.   
  
The two grieving girls battled their way across the courtyard. They crossed over the bodies of the fallen and past the tortured forms of the living. As they neared a wall a curse went flying over their heads, hitting the stone and opening a huge, jagged hole. The assailants fought through it, even as falling stones opened a cut over Pansy's eye and hit Hermione's shoulder with a painful thud. They tripped on the debris and went rolling together over the floor of the Great Hall. Pansy's fingernails raked the other girl's cheek, leaving four long red gashes. Hermione's hands found themselves around Pansy's neck, trying with all their strength to strangle her.  
  
In the corner of her eye she could see all of the professors sitting in a ring, with Harry in the center. There was a light about them, a blazing, red-gold light that throbbed hypnotically. Against it the teachers' forms cast long black shadows on the wall of the Great Hall. Would there spell be successful? Would Voldemort be defeated?  
  
No, Hermione couldn't think of those things. If she let herself think the hole would get her. She had to focus on the fight or be sucked in.   
  
But then something happened that startled even the two grieving, animal-like girls out of their grappling. In the corner, the red-gold light had exploded into a pillar of blinding white lightning. It shot upwards in a bright, hot fury. Along with it was a sound. Hermione recognized Harry's screaming, loud and seemingly unending. There was also an unearthly shriek so high that it pierced the ears. But also, and most horribly of all, there was a hissing. It echoed throughout the Great Hall and the courtyard and the world beyond. It filled the ears and penetrated down to the deepest depths of the mind.   
  
Hermione rolled away from Pansy, lay on her back, and froze.  
  
The sky was falling.   
  
  
  
Later, Hermione was told that the very strength of the spell that finally killed Voldemort had collapsed the magical supports of the Great Hall's ceiling. The pieces of the roof had kept their ancient enchantment even as they crumbled and fell. It was a sight that stayed in Hermione's mind and soul forever. The broken, jagged pieces of stone had been scattered with dark clouds, but where the sky peered through it was purple with evening, and gleaming with a few faint stars.  
  
It was an odd experience, frightening yet strangely... wondrous, to see the sky raining down on you.  
  
Of all those in the Great Hall, only Pansy and Hermione survived. A few hours later, Hermione was lying beside the other girl in the corridor where the wounded were lain after the infirmary filled. She was still and quiet in her pain, but Pansy, blonde hair matted with blood, was shuddering and moaning. Then she grew still, and her eyes widened. The last word Pansy Parkinson said before leaving the mortal world, was "Draco."  
  
  
  
Hermione reached up to touch her cheek. Though the four long marks there were not visible, she could feel them very faintly beneath her fingertips.   
  
Funny how dry the cheek was. She never cried when she thought about that last battle, and all the losses it brought. No tears ran during the battle either. She cried when Ron told her that he loved her, and later when he proposed, and again when Dumbledore died, and again when she remembered all those things. She certainly wasn't the type that eternally held in her weeping... and yet the most horrible night in her life left her cheeks and eyes painfully dry.   
  
"Professor!"  
  
Hermione turned to see an out of breath student at the door, a young boy with a round, moon-shaped face.  
  
"Yes, Longbottom?"  
  
"Someone just flew into the entrance hall and collapsed! Professor Weasley wanted me to get you."  
  
Hermione nodded and put away the essays.   
  
"He's in the hospital wing now."  
  
In the hospital wing she found a red haired woman standing by a bed, the curtains pulled closed so that Hermione could not see the occupant.  
  
Remus didn't seem to be in the room. Odd.  
  
"Where's the Headmaster?"  
  
"I wanted you to see our visitor before the rest of the faculty," replied Ginny.  
  
Hermione looked at her colleague. "Why?"  
  
"He's... an old friend of your's, Hermione." Ginny turned, the hair that reminded so Hermione eternally of Ron catching the light, and pulled back the curtain.   
  
Viktor Krum was lying on the hospital bed. 


	4. Important Things

Author's Note: It's been, what, three months since I updated? I'm sorry, it was just that I was sort of running out of steam for fanfiction of all types, until my last review finally kicked me into action. I happen to be pretty satisfied with this chapter, but everyone can form their own opinions.  
  
  
  
Hermione stared with her mouth hanging open at the face on the pillow, with it's beak of a nose and it's dark scars that had not been there when she last saw Viktor.  
  
She spun around to see Ginny already at the infirmary door.   
  
"Ginny, what...?"  
  
The red-haired professor gave her colleague a long, cutting look. "No one will disturb you for a few hours, Hermione, I've made sure of it. Now stay, and wait for him to wake up. You'll know what to do then."  
  
"Don't leave Gin..."   
  
But the door was already swinging closed, leaving Hermione alone with her unconscious friend from long ago.   
  
Then, so suddenly, but so drawn out, that it seemed to rip rather than shatter the silence, there came a groan.   
  
She turned around slowly, and saw his eyes on her. They were sharp, black eyes, keen enough to spot a snitch from a mile off. They reminded Hermione of small pieces of pure night, fixed within a human face.  
  
Two steps brought her to his bedside, and she sank onto a chair next to it.   
  
Her own, brown eyes met his. "Hello Viktor."  
  
He spoke, gasping out each syllable "Her..my...oh...nin...ny."  
  
"Yes, Viktor?"   
  
He appeared not to hear her. "Her...mo...nee." He reached out and covered her hand in his large, rough one. "Her... mi...o...ne." Hermione smiled, he'd finally learned to pronounce her name.  
  
His voice was steadying now, "Hermione, I have a message. A message for Dumbledore."  
  
She tightened her grip on his hand. "Dumbldore's dead, Victor. Didn't you know?"   
  
His black eyes crossed briefly, and then he relaxed and slowly nodded. "I remember now. Who is Headmaster, then?"  
  
"A man named Remus Lupin. You wouldn't have met him. He came to stay at Hogwarts after you... after you left." Hermione paused for a moment, remembering the reason that Viktor flew away. "He's a good man, and a good Headmaster."  
  
"But not Dumbledore."  
  
She shook her head. "No, never Dumbledore. No one will ever be Dumbledore again."  
  
He gazed up at her. "I need to give my message still, to this... Lupin."  
  
"Oh." She had forgotten about his message. "I'll go get him, then."  
  
She stood up to leave, but Victor's hand shot out with all his Seeker speed and grasped her robes. "I have heard that Ron Veezlee too, has died."  
  
Hermione nodded in sorrowful confirmation.  
  
He let go of her robes. "I am sad for you."  
  
"Of course you are Viktor." With that she turned and left the infirmary.   
  
  
  
Ginny was not happy to see Hermione so soon after she had left her.   
  
The red-headed professor was heading down the staircase, the brown-haired up it. Hermione tried to walk past her, but Ginny, a wild look in her eyes, blocked Hermione's path.  
  
"What has it been, five minutes? Is he even awake yet?"  
  
"He's awake, Ginny. I'm going to get the Headmaster."  
  
"Going to get the... Hermione! You can't possibly have talked to Krum."  
  
Hermione tried not to meet her friend's eyes with her own. "I talked to him."  
  
"You might have spoken to him but you did not talk to him. Do you think that I left you alone in there so that you could rush out as soon as his eyes opened?"  
  
"It's not as if I can just forget, Ginny." Hermione tried to push her way up the staircase, but was stopped by a freckled arm.   
  
"You're not the only one who lost someone they loved in that battle, Hermione." Ginny's brown eyes were blazing. Hermione was suddenly reminded of a sixteen-year-old witch bringing down an attacker on a battlefield.   
  
"I loved Harry," said Ginny. "I loved him as much as you ever loved Ron." Her voice was beginning to tremble, though her eyes stayed fiery and dry. "And when I heard him screaming..." Ginny stopped and touched her throat, then blinked once before continuing, "I loved him and I mourned him, and Seamus loved and mourned Pavarti too, but we.. we were able to live through our mourning and to... to fall in love again."   
  
The red-headed woman reached out and rested her hand on her friend's arm. "I'm not saying that you should forget my brother, Hermione. But you aren't seventeen anymore, so stop living inside your memories, and stop looking at me and seeing him. Please. I'll get Remus for you."  
  
Ginny turned and walked the rest of the way up the stair's, only disappearing when she turned into the hallway that led to the Headmaster's office. Hermione stood on the stairs for a long while before turning and walking down the steps, toward her quarters.  
  
  
  
It was two days later. Hermione wouldn't have a class for another hour or so, and the halls were empty except for ghosts and the occasional student running an errand or rushing up to the hospital wing with scales growing on their face.  
  
She had been reading a book in her office, but she was too restless to read. It reminded her of the way she had been unable to study, so long ago when she was seventeen and sought solitude on the roofs. Now, however, she was a professor, and too dignified to climb onto the roofs. Instead, she went to the entrance hall.   
  
Hermione paused in front of a very special, square section of wall. It was the largest piece of the Great Hall ceiling to survive, and had been built into the new wall, like a slice of sky laid on its side. On its surface, now clear and sunlit blue, the names of all those who had died in the Battle of Hogwarts were inscribed in gold.   
  
She reached out and read the first name her hand touched. Ernie MacMillan. Her fingers traveled down the list of names, all the way down to the very bottom. There was Charlie Weasley's name, and below it, was his. Ron's. She traced the gold lettering and could almost feel the contours of her love's face. "Live through our mourning." That was what Ginny had said. "Fall in love again."  
  
"Hermione? Vhy are you not in your class?"  
  
She was surprised to hear someone behind her, and her first impulse was to straighten with a jolt, but Hermione stood and turned slowly.  
  
"Hello, Viktor. I see that you were able to leave the hospital wing."  
  
"At last. It was a violent curse I was hit with as I flew away. Even now I must use a cane." He shifted the dark prop he was holding. "Did... did Lupin tell you my message?"  
  
She nodded. "Yes, about that man who claims to be the Voldemort's son. What does he call himself."  
  
"The Dark King."  
  
For the first in a long while, Hermione laughed. "Of course, a king is higher than a lord. I suppose he had to outdo his dear old dad."  
  
Viktor frowned. "You shouldn't laugh, Hermione. He is powerful. Not as powerful as the Dark Lord, perhaps, but..."  
  
"Yes, I know. I'm taking this very seriously."  
  
"Good. Ve are not as strong as ve vere." He turned and began to slowly walk away, his cane tapping against the stone floor.   
  
"Wait!" Hermione called. Viktor halted and looked back at her. She continued. "Maybe, once you've fully recovered, you can take me flying, like you did once."  
  
He nodded and smiled. "I vould like that very much." He started to move away again.  
  
Hermione stood for a moment, watching him as he tapped his way toward the stairs. Suddenly, she decided something. Clutching her robes in her hands, she ran and caught up with him.   
  
"Wait for me, Viktor. There's ten years that we have to tell each other about."  
  
He grinned even wider this time, the largest smile Hermione had seen on his face since she was fourteen and had just agreed to go to the Yule Ball with him. When she saw that smile, she felt contented, and knew that she was truly looking forward to the future for the first time in ten years.  
  
Maybe, just maybe, she thought, important things can happen at twenty-seven, as well as seventeen.  
  
The End 


End file.
